http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice#Ice_harvesting

Ice harvesting was an enormous industry before refrigeration. Companies like the Tudor Ice Company made huge profits shipping ice from New England to as far away as India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Tudor

My Grandpa used to take the horses with the sleigh to the lake. He and the farmhands would cut ice from the surface of the lake, then haul it to the sleigh with ice calipers.

They would drive the sleigh full of ice blocks back up to the farm, load the blocks into the ice shed (which was partly underground, like a cold cellar) and pack sawdust between and around the blocks. The ice shed and the sawdust kept the ice good and clear all summer.

The ice would be sawn into smaller blocks and sold for folks to put in their ice boxes (precursor of the refrigerator) as the cooling agent. Also, the ice could be chipped, and used in drinks. Really fancy folks had an aluminum ice tray with a handle to pop out the cubes--fancy!

source: 1930s and '40s on an Ottawa Valley farm at South Mountain, near Winchester, Ontario, Canada

One of the principal industries of Alaska during the latter stages of the Russian period was the ice industry. Ships from San Francisco would travel to Woody Island (near Kodiak Island) and collect ice harvested from winter lakes maintained for the purpose. These ships would have holds packed with sawdust and transport the ice south to San Francisco.

In summer, both San Francisco and Woody Island would have icehouses, well-insulated subterranean or semi-buried buildings with thick wood and sawdust insulation. The ice would frequently last all year, and the industry was successful enough that the Russians built Alaska's first railroad tracks on Woody Island to speed the ice harvest.

The harvested ice was then stored in deep wells to keep it frozen as long as possible. The Gadsby Tavern in Alexandria, VA has an original 18th century ice well.

Iced drinks are mentioned by Martial (40-104AD) in Rome. I don't have a copy to hand, but here is a translated version I found online. I'm afraid it's a very poor scan, and I can't make out the reference for it.

Your fever still attends you, though you grieve ;
Though you complain, will not one moment leave.
With you it travels in a chariot ; dines
With you, on truffles, oysters, sweetbreads, chines :
Drinks hock ; in Bui^nd^ is veir nice ; [?]
Nor will taste claret, till 'tis cool'd in ice ;
Reclines at ease ; and smells to some perfume ;
Lodges on down, in a well-fumish'd room.
Think you, a fever, which you treat so well,
Will with a porter or a cobbler dwell?

Seneca complained that rich Romans would pay high prices for the ice from the bottom of icehouses - snow was put in at the top, and used for most purposes, but the bottom compressed to ice which was more valuable. Seneca felt that this was a decadence. "You see skinny youths wrapped in cloaks and mufflers, pale and sickly, not only sipping the snow but actually eating it and tossing bits into their glasses lest they become warm merely through the time taken in drinking!"

According to Ancient Inventions, P James and N Thorpe, the later Chou emperors (4-3C BC) had a staff of 94 dedicated to chilling items with ice, including wine. A Chinese icehouse of the 7C BC has been identified, and there is a possible reference to an icehouse from 1100BC.

The same source states that Egypt under the Mamelukes imported snow by camel from the mountains of the Sinai, until about 1400.